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Information

Background

Hydro Tasmania has been a leader in renewable

energy development since it pioneered hydroelectric

power generation in Australia over one hundred

years ago.

It is now the country’s largest producer of

renewable energy. They use a combination of water

and wind power to harness natural energy that they

sell into the national grid.

In addition the company owns Momentum Energy, a

specialist electricity retailer that provides high

quality products and services to their customers in

Australia. They also operate an international

consulting business, Entura which offers expert

power engineering, renewable energy, water and

environmental solutions locally, nationally and

internationally.

Situation

Hydro Tasmania started an implementation of SAP in

2010 to replace over 50 legacy applications to bring

more control and easier management to the business.

SAP went live in 2013, although there is still ongoing

work to refine the solution being undertaken.

The modules implemented include Finance, HR, Supply

Chain, Asset Management, Project Management, EHS,

GRC and BW.

Other applications which support other areas of the

business still remain, including Retail systems which are

mainly used by Momentum Energy.

Initial reports were developed by the System Integrator.

Subsequently, the Business Intelligence team,

managed by Scott Delaney, was charged with delivering

enhancements to those; as well as building new reports,

dashboards and analytics from both SAP and SAP

Business Warehouse (BW) sources using the SAP

Business Objects product suite. (WEB Intelligence,

Crystal Reports, Dashboards and Analytics tools).

Hydro Tasmania also utilise SAP Data Services to fulfil

some of the data movement requirements.

PROJECT

Meeting business

requirements for information

Delivering reports,

dashboards and analytics

solutions based on SAP and

SAP BW source data

CHALLENGE

Staff unfamiliar with SAP and

SAP BW

No available data model for

SAP and SAP BW sources

Traditional approach using

Google searches, and

hypothesis testing

unsuccessful

SOLUTION

Safyr used to infer data

models from customised SAP

implementation

BENEFITS

Time saved

Improved accuracy

Increased productivity

Using Safyr to harness the power

of natural thinking in an SAP

Business Intelligence project

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

Hydro Tasmania

Hydro Tasmania’s Gordon Dam. The dam is 192 metres (630 ft.) long and 140 metres (460 ft.) high. It is the tallest dam in Tasmania and the fifth-tallest in Australia.

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Information

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

Hydro Tasmania

Challenge

The first challenge encountered by the BI team was

the lack of data models or documentation about the

data models for SAP ECC or for SAP BW.

This meant that they had no start point from which

to begin to find the data they needed in order to be

able to build or enhance the reports, dashboards or

analytics which were required by the business.

Prior to the implementation of SAP, the team had

been extremely proficient and confident in providing

data to the business which originated in the various

legacy applications.

Now however they needed to understand how to get

data from new sources, SAP and SAP BW, without

documentation or data models.

Whilst trying to build skills in these systems, the

size, complexity and opaque nature of their data

models meant that this task was extremely daunting

and led to the team becoming frustrated and

working at a reduced pace.

This metadata discovery, or source data analysis

phase in any information focused project is critical

for success because without accurate information

about the underlying data structures of an

application from which to work, the implementation

team are hampered in their efforts to deliver.

Small, often in house built applications, databases

or spreadsheets usually present little in the way of

an obstacle for discovery, however large, complex

and customised packaged applications offer a chal-

lenge on a much greater scale and with more

associated risk if not done properly.

As a result, they found that putting together a

[simple] single data model containing just the tables

they needed for a particular set of reports could cost

as much as AUS$20,000 in internal resources.

It quickly became obvious that trying to locate the

right data from SAP or SAP BW was a major hurdle

which affected the BI team’s ability to meet

deadlines and was resulting in a growing backlog

and potential damage to their internal reputation.

Initial approaches to the problem

As Scott Delaney says: “We were originally

informed that no data model was available for the

SAP application or for SAP BW”.

The System Integrator involved in the project also

offered to build a data model for them, however the

time it would have taken was not fitting and the

price was outside the acceptable budget

parameters.

Lacking a clear set of documentation, the team

resorted to a combination of searching Google for

SAP data models and using a ‘best guess’ approach

to finding what they needed for reporting, analytics

and dashboards.

They also made use of a process of hypothesis

testing through data observation.

As they continued to struggle to deliver this content

accurately and in an acceptable timescale, they

decided to look for other methods of accessing and

understanding SAP and SAP BW metadata.

Hydro Tasmania, a leader in wind and other renewable energy technologies

PROJECT

Meeting business

requirements for information

Delivering reports,

dashboards and analytics

solutions based on SAP and

SAP BW source data

CHALLENGE

Staff unfamiliar with SAP and

SAP BW

No available data model for

SAP and SAP BW sources

Traditional approach using

Google searches, and

hypothesis testing

unsuccessful

SOLUTION

Safyr used to infer data

models from customised SAP

implementation

BENEFITS

Time saved

Improved accuracy

Increased productivity

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Information

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

Hydro Tasmania

Choosing Safyr

As part of their search, a team member found Safyr,

which on initial investigation gave them confidence

that it would help them to quickly and

accurately find the part of the SAP model that they

needed for the specific business area they were

working on.

After contacting Silwood Technology, the team

downloaded an evaluation copy of the software and

arranged for a presentation and demonstration of the

product from the vendor.

Having seen and experienced the functionality of the

product the team were confident that firstly; it would

meet their needs and secondly; at the price point of

the software it would pay for itself within a couple of

months. Subsequently a decision to purchase the

software and an initial training course was scheduled.

Experience with Safyr

The installation of Safyr was easy, quick (about 30

minutes) and free of complications or problems once

the small piece of SAP certified Safyr ABAP code was

loaded into the target SAP systems.

The team also decided to undertake the initial 1 day

training course, They found the education useful and

it helped them to pick up the use of the product very

quickly.

Since then Safyr has proved to be valuable and was

used extensively in the early stages of the BI project.

It is still in regular use today helping the team to meet

the reporting needs of the business.

Scott Delaney states that Safyr has easily met their

expectations in terms of the functionality they

required.

It has enabled them to navigate the SAP and SAP BW

data models and quickly find the parts of the data

model they need which represent the data required for

reporting and save those as Safyr Subject Areas.

He also picked out the Application Hierarchy view of

the SAP data model and the Table Row count function

as being welcome surprises in their use of Safyr. The

Application Hierarchy provides a means to see which

SAP Tables are used by which SAP Programs,

Functions, etc. The Row Count facility has made it

easy for them to confidently ignore tables which are

included in a result set but which contain no data.

Whilst Safyr can export its Subject Areas to a variety

of modelling tools including ERwin, ER/Studio and

SAP PowerDesigner, the team at Hydro Tasmania

decided to make extensive use of Safyr’s Enterprise

Relationship Diagrammer module for visualising and

sharing the Subject Areas which were the results of

their analysis of the SAP data model.

Scott Delaney: “We were originally informed

that no data model was available for the SAP

application or for SAP BW”

PROJECT

Meeting business

requirements for information

Delivering reports,

dashboards and analytics

solutions based on SAP and

SAP BW source data

CHALLENGE

Staff unfamiliar with SAP and

SAP BW

No available data model for

SAP and SAP BW sources

Traditional approach using

Google searches, and

hypothesis testing

unsuccessful

SOLUTION

Safyr used to infer data

models from customised SAP

implementation

BENEFITS

Time saved

Improved accuracy

Increased productivity

4

Information

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

Hydro Tasmania

Benefits

Scott Delaney reports that “Safyr has proved to be a

highly successful addition to the tools available to

the team and played a significant part in helping

them to clear the backlog of reporting requests and

that as expected the return on investment in the

product was easily realised within a few months”.

He estimates that the time saved or additional

productivity was equivalent to at least ¾ of a Full

Time Employee.

He describes how tasks that, without Safyr, would

have taken days or weeks now take hours or

possibly a day and mentions a specific example

where previously finding a specific set of tables took

93 hours, the same task now took only 35 minutes

using Safyr!

The BI team has greater confidence in their own

work and no longer waste time wondering if the

results of their Google searching are correct and

trying to check them.

Scott again “As a result of our investment in Safyr

we are able to take a more agile approach to

meeting the demands for new reports and data

within acceptable timescales and the business’ trust

in the information they provide is growing”.

The future

The BI team will continue to use Safyr to help drive

high quality information flow to support business

initiatives.

Hydro Tasmania will shortly be embarking on an

Information Governance Framework project to

deliver an inventory of available data across the

company. The objectives are to enable better

communication via data models of information used

by the business, better integration and improved

analytics.

Safyr will be used to deliver the SAP data models

for that project and its scope may be broadened to

make it easier for other packaged applications with

complex and inaccessible data models to be

included.

Image courtesy of University of Tasmania

PROJECT

Meeting business

requirements for information

Delivering reports,

dashboards and analytics

solutions based on SAP and

SAP BW source data

CHALLENGE

Staff unfamiliar with SAP and

SAP BW

No available data model for

SAP and SAP BW sources

Traditional approach using

Google searches, and

hypothesis testing

unsuccessful

SOLUTION

Safyr used to infer data

models from customised SAP

implementation

BENEFITS

Time saved

Improved accuracy

Increased productivity